The present invention relates to document feeding along a document feed path, and is particularly directed to a document picker apparatus for picking a document from a stack of documents stored in a hopper of a document processing system such as a check processing system.
A known type of document picker apparatus for picking a document from a stack of documents includes a picker wheel which is rotatable about its longitudinal central axis. When the picker wheel is driven to rotate about its longitudinal central axis, a picker belt disposed on the picker wheel is driven. The picker belt has an outer major side surface which engages documents from a stack of documents stored in a hopper. When the picker belt is driven, the outer major side surface of the picker belt picks documents from the stack of documents and moves these documents along a document feed path.
An advance/retard mechanism cooperates with the picker wheel to separate adjacent documents from each other as documents are picked and moved along the document feed path. A typical advance/retard mechanism holds a document which is being picked by the picker wheel stationary while advancing a document which is ahead of the document being held stationary. The document being held stationary continues to be held until the document which is being advanced is moved sufficiently along the document feed path to separate away from the document being held stationary.
From time to time, a document may buckle like an accordion in the document feed path. This may occur because the picker wheel is tending to force the document along the document feed path while the advance/retard mechanism is tending to hold the document stationary until it and the document ahead are separated from each other along the document feed path.